"That instrumentation is fairly unique," says Daniels, who brings his ensemble to the Firefly Club on Friday. The group was initially founded in 2007 as the Leigh Daniels Jazz Constellation, but he changed the name because his compositions began borrowing more and more from classical elements.

"Originally, it was bass, drums, piano ... But then I became interested in what strings would bring, so I added a viola, and it just kept building from there," he says.

"Generally, when people think of jazz, they think of sax and trumpet, but I took the chance with the strings, and I really like the combination - I found that it gave us a lot more choices in terms of colors and textures.

"I'm typically somewhat averse to amplification," Daniels says. "And the strings bring a different aesthetic - they allow us to go for something that's softer and quiet.

"Some pieces we do are definitely what you would categorize as classical, and are written primarily for the strings, but we also have pieces that feature the strings doing a big-band jazz sound, with counter-melodies. I just try to write what sounds good to me."

Although Daniels plays the bass, he sees his playing as secondary to his work as a composer. An Atlanta native, he earned his degree in composition from the University of Michigan in the late '70s. "I was afraid to pursue a career in music because I guess I was afraid of the criticism," he says.

So music became his avocation while he pursued a career in computers and tech support. In fact, he actually assembled his own personal computer from scratch in 1978. "It was one of the first PCs in the country," he says.

He retired from the tech world 10 years ago, freeing him to devote all of his working time to music.

Since Daniels employs a large ensemble that makes complex music, it requires a fair amount of rehearsal time - and the ensemble has only played four concerts in the last two years. "Besides the music being complex and requiring a lot of rehearsal, it's also hard to find a venue with strong acoustics and a top-notch piano," he says.

"The music I'm trying to create requires a group of the same people playing together over an extended period of time. So I think of each weekly meeting as more of a workshop and less of a rehearsal in the traditional sense."

One of Daniels' biggest influences is Charles Mingus. "Mingus was a bandleader and a bassist and a composer, and he had a rich range of sound colors - I liked the way he handled dissonance, and that he didn't resolve it in a traditional way."

While Daniels likes working with dissonance in his own compositions, "it's not the predominant quality," he says. "I tend to take more of a populist approach. I need to have a good, strong melody that people can connect to. In a lot of contemporary jazz, the melody gets lost, and then the audience gets lost.

"So, I do use dissonance, to build tension, but I don't use extended sections of dissonance. I like to resolve it, and make the music more accessible."

Kevin Ransom can be contacted at KevinRansom10@aol.com.

PREVIEW

The Leigh Daniels Ensemble

•Who: Local 11-piece ensemble, including a string section, pursues an ambitious synergy of modern jazz and classical music.